The History of the Monkey Puzzle Tree

The Araucaria lineage first appeared roughly 200 million years ago, during the Triassic period. Dinosaurs were already roaming Pangaea. The Atlantic Ocean didn't exist yet. These trees watched the dinosaurs flourish through the Jurassic and Cretaceous, and then catastrophically depart. They survived ice ages, continental drift, and volcanic apocalypses. And now they live in front gardens in Basingstoke.

The term “living fossil” gets thrown around a lot, but the monkey puzzle genuinely earns it. Its closest relatives are the Norfolk Island pine and the Wollemi pine, which was thought extinct until 1994, when someone found a stand of them hiding in an Australian canyon. Araucarias are survivors. It's what they do.

Long before any European laid eyes on this tree, it was the central pillar of an entire civilisation. In Mapudungun, the ancestral language of the Mapuche people of southern Chile and Argentina, the tree is known as the Pehuén. A specific subgroup of the Mapuche, the Pehuenche, take their very name from it: “people of the Pehuén.” Their identity, their culture, and their survival are inseparable from this tree.

The large seeds, called piñones, are highly nutritious and rich in complex carbohydrates. They can be eaten raw, roasted like chestnuts, or ground into a dense flour for bread and fermented beverages. For millennia the autumn piñon harvest has been the defining event of the Pehuenche calendar, a communal gathering that ensured survival through the harsh, snowbound Andean winters. The tree did not just grow in Pehuenche territory. It fed the people, shaped their migrations, and anchored their year.

The Pehuén is also considered sacred: a symbol of resilience, ancient wisdom, and ancestral connection, believed to possess a spirit that provides for the people in times of famine. The Mapuche understanding of the tree runs remarkably deep. Its dioecious nature, requiring both male and female trees to produce seed, mirrors indigenous concepts of duality, balance, and harmony in nature. When European landscapers later planted lone specimens as ornamental curiosities, they unknowingly severed the ecological and cultural pairing that defined the tree in its homeland.

Today, in regions like the Quinquen Valley (“place of refuge”), Pehuenche communities struggle to maintain their connection to the Pehuén as sacred forests face pressure from logging and land disputes. The tree that survived 200 million years of geological upheaval now needs human help to survive human activity.

The monkey puzzle arrived in Britain through an act of what can only be described as diplomatic napkin theft. In 1795, Scottish surgeon-botanist Archibald Menzies attended a formal dinner hosted by the Governor of Chile. Seeds from the local “pehuen” tree were served as part of the dessert course. Menzies, recognising their botanical significance, quietly pocketed a handful.

He nurtured the seeds throughout the long voyage home. Five seedlings survived and were planted at Kew Gardens. A 200-million-year-old species had arrived in Britain because a Scotsman nicked some nuts at a state dinner. The rest is horticulture.

The real invasion came in 1849, when plant hunter William Lobb was dispatched to Chile by Veitch Nurseries in Exeter with specific instructions: bring back monkey puzzle seeds. He returned with thousands. The Victorians were ready.

The Victorians went absolutely wild for monkey puzzles. Exotic, architectural, impossible to ignore: the tree became the ultimate garden status symbol. Owning one declared that you were a person of taste, means, and botanical ambition. It rivalled the conservatory, a good set of aspidistras, and a well-stocked fernery.

Every respectable estate wanted one. Then every large garden. Then every suburban villa. The trees were planted enthusiastically and without any particular regard for what a 40-metre conifer might do to a 10-metre plot over the next century and a half. This oversight would prove significant.

The monkey puzzle got its common name at a dinner party. Around 1850, at Pencarrow House in Cornwall, the owner was showing guests a recently planted young specimen. Charles Austin, a noted barrister, examined the fearsome spiralling branches and declared:

“It would puzzle a monkey to climb that.”

The name stuck. Never mind that no monkey has ever encountered one in the wild. South America has plenty of primates, but they live in tropical forests, not the cold, volcanic highlands of the Andes where monkey puzzles grow. Never mind that the species already had a perfectly serviceable name. A barrister made a quip at a dinner party in Cornwall, and a 200-million-year-old tree was renamed after a hypothetical primate scenario.

Here is the thing about monkey puzzle trees: they get big. Very big. A mature specimen can reach 40 metres tall and live for over 1,000 years. The average British front garden is approximately 10 metres long. You can see where this is going.

Those fashionable Victorian saplings are now enormous. They tower over houses. They block out the sun. They drop cones the size of coconuts. And because monkey puzzles are protected by Tree Preservation Orders in many local authorities, you can't just remove them. You chose this tree. (Or more accurately, your great-great-grandparents chose this tree. You just inherited the consequences.)

This creates a peculiarly British dilemma: a genuine affection for an extraordinary tree, combined with the practical reality that it is slowly consuming your house.

Monkey puzzles have attracted their fair share of folklore. In some parts of Britain, it's considered bad luck to pass one without saying “good morning” or “good afternoon.” The origins of this belief are obscure, but given that the trees predate human civilisation by roughly 199.7 million years, one could argue they've earned the courtesy.

There's also a tradition that monkeys (again, hypothetical ones) would become stuck in the branches if they tried to climb down. Some hold that the devil himself sits in the tree. Others maintain that planting one brings good fortune. The trees themselves offer no comment.

Despite their ubiquity in British gardens, monkey puzzles are in serious trouble in the wild. The IUCN classifies Araucaria araucana as Endangered. Logging, fire, and habitat loss have devastated native populations in Chile and Argentina.

The situation contains a grim irony: the cultivated population in British gardens keeps growing, while the wild population in its native Andean forests keeps shrinking. The species that survived 200 million years of geological upheaval is being undone by human activity in a matter of decades.

Conservation efforts are ongoing in both Chile and Argentina, but the species remains under serious threat.

Before Monkey Puzzle Watch existed, before anyone had thought to build an app for it, Sarah Horton was already out there doing exactly this. Her Monkey Map project set out to catalogue every monkey puzzle tree she and her growing network of volunteer “Agents” could find. Armed with a blog and an infectious enthusiasm, she recruited spotters from across the country and beyond. By the time she completed the project, she had catalogued thousands of monkey puzzle trees across more than 100 UK postcode areas and seven countries.

Sarah's blog, Monkey Map, is still online and well worth a browse. Sarah proved what we always suspected: that once you start noticing monkey puzzles, you absolutely cannot stop, and that people will cheerfully devote their weekends to photographing and reporting spiky trees on suburban streets. As she wrote when she completed the project: “the exciting aspect of the Monkey Map is the looking, the observing and the connecting to the natural world. Never forget that.” We haven't forgotten, and Monkey Puzzle Watch exists in no small part because she showed it could be done. You can read more about her work in this Guardian feature from 2015.

The Anglo-Chilean Society celebrates the cultural, historical, and botanical connections between Britain and Chile, a relationship in which the monkey puzzle plays a starring role. Through their Monkey Puzzle UK project, the Society has assembled a growing collection of photographs and records of notable specimens across Britain. If you have ever wondered what a 150-year-old monkey puzzle looks like towering over a rectory in Devon, or spreading across a hillside in Argyll, their gallery will oblige.

Monkey Puzzle Watch picks up where Sarah's Monkey Map left off, and we are proud to work alongside the Anglo-Chilean Society's ongoing efforts. The fundamental impulse is the same one that drove Sarah to catalogue thousands of trees and the Society to photograph and record theirs: an irresistible urge to spot, document, and celebrate every monkey puzzle we can. We encourage anyone interested in the broader story of Chile's extraordinary trees to visit Monkey Puzzle UK.